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Must-have gadgets for your 'Work from Home'

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Mr. Harish Naidu,<br> Director, Xmate As many of us ride out the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting our workplace into the home is the new normal. Be it for the first-timers or the Work from home veteran, staying on the task in a new environment can be challenging.

The most important tech essentials that anyone needs to work remotely is a reliable & stable internet connection and a laptop. Additionally, we have also rounded up a handy list of must-haves gadgets that can truly boost your productivity and provide perfect work from office set-up.

7 work from home gadgets worth considering

1. Ergonomic Keyboard & Mouse

Most of us will agree that a keyboard & mouse as an external device helps us make work faster and type better. Depending on your setup, you would like to go for an ergonomic keyboard & mouse so that you don’t feel strained after a long day at the computer anymore. A separate laptop keyboard & mouse can prove beneficial as it reduces the distance between the screen and your eyes. They also set you free from the hassle of being tied to a chord.
Using an external mouse instead of the laptop’s touchpad allows for more flexible screen positioning, to create a much better angle between the eyes and the display. Considering a wireless and rechargeable mouse with good battery capacity can help a great deal. The latest ones come with great battery life that lasts up to almost 10 days on a single charge. Choosing one with an ergonomic design limits the amount of wrist and hand fatigue making it comfortable to use for long hours.

2. USB Hub for all gears

If you have a laptop released within the last two years, chances are that it has one or more USB-C ports. Naturally, chances are if you have a USB-C laptop you have plenty more gadgets and accessories that use traditional USB or some other more legacy form of connection. In such a scenario, a Type –C USB Hub that comes with several ports that enables you to mirror or extend the display of your laptop to your TV, monitor or projector is a helpful gadget to have during these lockdown times.

3. A pair of noise cancelling Earphones

Though working from home gives you the freedom to pump up the volume on your speakers, earphones can still come in handy — especially the latest True Wireless models which come in various price ranges starting from Rs. 1000/- onwards.
Before buying a pair of TWS, don’t forget to pick up a lightweight, well-designed pair. The latest ones come with smart touch control features that help in managing audio and video calls seamlessly, battery display , C-Type charging, a long battery life and HD sound quality are features to consider before you pick up these tiny, most hottest accessory.

4. Portable Hard Drive


There are good reasons to use an external hard drive even if your laptop or computer comes with large storage space. The most important reason being, it can act as a backup drive. Hard drives crash and die, so having a backup is essential for those emergencies. Using an external drive with a large cache buffer can speed up the performance of your system with slower internal drives. Due to high portability external drives also prove more hassle-free while moving/transferring the data from one location to another.

5. Laptop Stand/Cooling Pad

Laptop cooling fans make using a laptop a more viable experience especially during long hours of usage in a set up like a home. If you prefer using your laptop on bed, couch or lap, these obstruct the laptop's vents and cause the device to build up heat, and laptops without a fan may get too warm for comfortable use on one’s lap. Laptop cooling pads help improve laptop airflow by positioning the system on a hard, flat and non-fabric surface. It is advisable not to use cooling pads on bed or couch as the cooling pads may force more dust into the computer when used on a fabric surface.

6. Wi-Fi Extender

It is a common tendency to move around, change places and work on your laptop while working from home. If you are far away from your router or wireless point, you may experience weak attenuated signals making the internet connection slow. Wireless range extenders or Wi-Fi extenders prove to be effective in such scenarios. Wireless extenders extend the Wi-Fi coverage space by amplifying the original signal from the wireless access point. There are several brands of WiFi extenders in the market, and it is vital to select the most reliable one. Once you find a reliable one, be assured of an excellent performance that will make you forget the distance between your device and the wireless router you are using.

7. Multi-socket Charger for all your gadgets

Investing in a single charger that can power up most of the devices is a smart investment to make. This helps to avoid constantly switching things in and out of wall sockets and ending up in a horrible mesh of wiring.

We hope the above list is useful to the new age remote workers who are not confined within the boundaries of an official workspace anymore.